Zoe was taken to hospital in Athens and is understood to be receiving treatment for burns to her head and hands. It is believed she will make a full recovery.
The newlyweds married in Ireland last Thursday before jetting off to Greece on Saturday.
Their families issued a statement following the news of Brian’s passing:
"We are deeply saddened to confirm the death of our family member, Brian O'Callaghan-Westropp.
The heartbroken family of Brian O’Callaghan-Westropp confirmed in a statement that he has died. The newlyweds were on honeymoon in Greece and became caught up in wildfires sweeping the country. His wife, Zoe is recovering from burn injuries in hospital. pic.twitter.com/c7hTJpYI8C
"The families would respectfully appreciate privacy at this time as we grieve and as Zoe makes her recovery.
"Funeral arrangement will be announced at a later stage,” they added.
I am deeply saddened at confirmation of the death of an Irish citizen in Greece. This is such a terrible tragedy, my thoughts are with the families and friends who have requested privacy.
Officials at our Embassy in Athens will continue to provide every possible assistance.
Greek wildfires have reportedly claimed the lives of 60 people in the Attica region around Athens.
The country is experiencing the worst fire crisis in more than a decade, as summer temperatures have been high.
The Press Association reports that Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras has declared a national three-day mourning period.
A local official reportedly issued the sad news of the death toll to the media after the blaze has destroyed the seaside village of Mati.
The town is located 40 km (25 miles) north-east of Athens.
The fire swept through Mati on Monday and places were still burning into Tuesday morning.
Mayor of the town of Rafina, Evangelos Bournous told Skai TV, that at least 60 people had lost their lives due to the fires.
Rescuers uncovered the remains of 26 victims, both adults and children in an open space.
Heartbreakingly, they were hugging as they passed away, just metres from the safety of the sea.
Nikos Economopoulos, head of Greece's Red Cross, said:
"They had tried to find an escape route but unfortunately these people and their kids didn't make it in time. Instinctively, seeing the end nearing, they embraced."
Rescue services have been called upon to look for missing people.
Emergency workers are using boats and helicopters to get people off the beaches and to safety in a huge rescue effort.
Desperate families attempting to flee to the safety of the sea were met by walls of smoke and flame.
Those who did make it were picked up by Coastal patrol boats and private vessels.
"Thankfully the sea was there and we went into the sea, because the flames were chasing us all the way to the water," said recounted one survivor, Kostas Laganos.
"It burnt our backs and we dived into the water… I said, 'My God, we must run to save ourselves.'"
Aragon and his owner Valia were out for a walk one day, when the dog started pulling on his lead.
Not sure what was going on, Valia decided to follow him to see what he was up to, and that’s when the shocking discovery was made.
There nestled at the foot of the mountain of Immitos was a small black and white box, and Valia got a shock when she looked inside and found 25 abandoned kittens.
“We were walking Aragon near the mountain, actually planning to video on the huge number of animals abandoned there, when Aragon started pulling us towards their direction,” the SCARS volunteer told BoredPanda.
“Aragon is curious about the kittens and since the first moment he saw them, he had a constant need to keep them all together and to clean them.”
Sharing her story on YouTube, Valia explained that abandoned kittens are a common thing in Greece and SCARS is working hard to find them all a home.
“Almost every day [Valia] finds empty cardboard boxes on the mountain (sometimes with the blankets and the toys still inside), but no animals” the video explains.
“Within a few hours since they are abandoned, kittens, puppies, bunnies and even birds (no joke!) become the dinner of a hungry fox (the most common predator on the mountains near Athens).
"This time, the kittens were lucky.”
And it seems like Aragon has taken to his new role as foster dad like a duck to water.
“Basically, he was the rescuer, and he has been an excellent foster dad since day one. The kittens are ready for their forever homes.”
It is the shocking image that began to emerge yesterday afternoon on social media: a small boy in blue trousers, a red t-shirt, and pair of smart black Velcro runners.
He was seen lying face down in the sand on a beach in Bodrum, a coastal area of Turkey popular with Irish tourists.
The three-year-old toddler, later named as Aylan Kurdi, had drowned – along with a dozen others.
Fleeing the violence of their home in Syria, Aylan and his family were attempting to reach Greece across the Aegean Sea at the time of his death.
The small boat on which they were travelling would have been loaded with migrants before setting off at 2am yesterday from the coast of Turkey.
Aylan, of course, never made it. Nor did his five-year-old elder brother, Galip, or their mother, Rehan. Two people remain unaccounted for; the youngest victim is a nine-month-old baby.
The short journey amounts to just 20km, but none of the passengers were wearing life-jackets, and once tossed into the sea, the children in particular stood little chance of survival.
The only remaining member of the family, the children’s father, Abdullah, had to make a series of unspeakably grim phone-calls to relatives yesterday.
He reportedly could only say: “My wife and two boys are dead,” before breaking down in grief.
Despite the presumed hardship of their young lives – the family lived in the ISIS-besieged Syrian city of Kobane – evidently the Kurdi boys enjoyed moments of happiness too: heartbreaking photographs of the pair emerged this morning.
One shows them smiling warmly while posing for the camera; Galip with his arm around Alyan.
A second snap shows the boys laughing with a large teddy bear between them.
Today, newspapers throughout Europe are dominated by the image of Alyan’s body – many front pages show him being carried gently from the shoreline by a member of the Turkish police force.
Indeed, the photograph is being compared to other historically significant and pivotal images from the 20th century: the stark picture of a burning Phan Thi Kim Phúc taken during the Vietnamese War, as well as the photo used on the cover of TIME magazine showing Muslim prisoners peering through barbed wire during the Srebrenica Genocide.
Social media has been particularly vocal too, with hundreds of thousands of tweets being posted calling for European nations – including Ireland – to do more to alleviate the crisis.
Speaking on RTE’s Morning Ireland today, Minister Brendan Howlin admitted that as a nation we now must “step up to the plate,” to help those refugees fleeing from Syria.
“It’s a world issue,” he said. “And we need to have a world response with a real sense of solidarity.”
Calling it “one of the most challenging issues for human-kind right now,” he concluded: “Seeing the bodies of young children on the shores of Europe is so shocking – and we can’t let that lie.”
Ireland has so far committed to taking 600 refugees between now and 2017.
This year, Germany, which has been at the forefront of campaigning on behalf of displaced peoples from the Middle East, will take 800,000.
Giving evidence at the banking inquiry at Leinster House today, former taoiseach Brian Cowen claims that a few years ago Ireland was looking a lot like Greece is now.
In fact, he says that in late September 2008, the banks were just days away from running out of cash completely – something which would have sent the country spiralling into chaos.
"It was clear that all the banks were running out of cash," he told the hearing earlier today, saying the government then was looking at "days rather than weeks".
"The issue was going to have to be addressed immediately," the former TD went on to say. "Anglo was running out of cash. We were heading into a very dangerous position."
He continued: "I was coming to the view that given what was potentially at stake, whatever we did would have to have an immediate and dramatic impact in stopping the outflow of funds from banks and indeed reversing the trend if possible."
In an opening statement, Mr Cowen said that allowing Anglo Irish Bank to simply go bust was never an option as that would have had "implications for the whole system".
He said he also feared there would be widespread panic, and a "run on other banks," as well as "irreparable damage to the economy".
Following crisis talks with the International Monetary Fund, on November 21, 2010 the Irish government formally applied for a bailout – and was given €440bn in emergency funds.
Battling its own financial crisis since 2008, Greece, a country of 11million people, has lately been hit yet more instability – namely because it's fast running out of money.
And, of course, if a government runs out of cash, it means that schools and hospitals can't stay open, and the likes of pensioners won't get their weekly allowance. In short, the country will shut down and likely spiral in chaos.
Greece owes billions to international creditors. But Athens was also been deeply unhappy with the terms of its 2010 bailout from the Troika (made up of the European Commission, the IMF, and the European Central Bank). It claims that its loan-terms are grossly unfair and, with unemployment hovering around the 25 percent mark, that growth and recovery is being severely prohibited.
On Tuesday, Greece missed a loan repayment deadline: it was supposed to cough up €1.5bn to the International Monetary Fund, but never did. It has thus become the very first developed country to miss an IMF payment. This weekend, it holds a referendum on whether it should adhere to bailout conditions or not.
A 'no' vote (oxi in Greek) is being backed by the Greek government and will likely see the return of its old currency, the drachma.
Here, SHEmazing! gives a breakdown of the latest developments from Athens:
Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras
How much does Greece owe and why is it in so much financial trouble?
Greece owes some €323bn to its creditors (Ireland owes €200bn – still considered high internationally). Understandably, its residents are beginning to panic – last weekend ATMs were emptied as citizens rushed to remove their savings from banks. The crisis has been brewing for years, however: the Athenian government spent beyond its means for a long time; it had to borrow heavily (a quarter of a trillion euro, in fact) in 2010 just to keep the country running. And because it is tied into the euro rather than its own currency, it couldn't just print more money to solve the issue.
Does it really matter if a country defaults on an IMF loan?
Yes it does – so much so that countries go to incredible lengths to avoid defaulting. But Greece's ruling Syriza party, which has been in power since January, has long wanted to prioritise domestic obligations – health, education, roads etc – over honouring bail-out installments. By missing its loan payment this week, it joined a less-than illustrious group of defaulters: DR Congo, Iraq, Sudan and Zambia have all been in the same boat. Its debt is beginning to mount too: Greece has to pay the European Central Bank €6.6bn by the end of the summer, and yesterday the IMF said Greece will need another €60bn in loans over the next three years just to stay afloat.
So, who is Alexis Tsipras?
He has been the Greek prime minister since January, when his Syriza party gained power via a landslide victory. A member of parliament since 2009 and a civil engineer by trade, he's still only 40. He's had to dilute some of his more extreme left-leaning persuasions in recent years, but still believes in withdrawing his country's Nato membership, imposing a 75 percent tax on Greece's wealthy citizens, and totally nationalising public services – including the banking sector. Understandably, the European ruling ascendancy (especially Germany) doesn't like him and wants him out; they'd just rather negotiate with a brand new parliament, in fact.
What's happening on Sunday?
Greece holds a referendum this weekend: its citizens are being asked whether to accept the terms of the 2010 bailout or not. Mr Tsipras argues that these austerity measures are "unbearable," and Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, has said that the programme imposed on Greece "is going to go down in economic history as the greatest cock-up ever." But German chancellor Angela Merkel disagrees, stating that the deal is "extraordinarily generous". Essentially, Greece reckons a no vote will allow it to negotiate better deals with its creditors, something the Troika has totally dismissed. Still, latest polls suggest a no vote will be passed.
What is it like in Greece right now?
The country's banks have been closed all week to all but pensioners (many of them don't have ATM cards). Otherwise, all citizens are allowed to withdraw €60 a day from cash machines: the money is released at midnight, prompting long queues to form once evening time comes around. People have been taking to the streets to protest too, though these demonstrations have largely died down now. Tourists (totaling 22.5million annually) continue to visit the country – especially the historical sites of Athens, and its picturesque islands and coastline.
'Grexit': what happens if Greece leaves the eurozone?
Well, no one knows for sure (a country has never left the EU before) – but it's likely to be pretty chaotic. For the Greeks themselves, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people would probably see their life-savings vanish. Further afield, a Grexit would have a ripple effect around Europe, but especially in fellow Troika territories: Portugal, Italy and Spain, and to a lesser extend Ireland and Cyprus. And other countries might consider leaving the euro themselves if their economies take a battering in future years. Finance Minister Michael Noonan reassured Irish people this week that the risk to our economy was small, as direct trade and financial links between the two countries is limited.
Ah, the life of a Made In Chelsea cast-member: sunshine, swimming pools, five-star locations – not to mention seriously pricey swimwear.
And Rosie Fortescue certainly looks to be having the time of her life in Greece. She is currently staying in the swish Nikki Beach resort of Porto Heli, where a week in a standard room costs €2,350.
Also on site is designer Julian McDonald – and Rosie has made sure to keep her fans up-to-date on her daily activities via her Instagram account.
In particular, the 25-year-old has been sharing several images of her clad in luxurious swimwear.
Today, she wore a €255 bikini fromKiini, while yesterday she opted for a green leopard-print number from Marianna G, priced similarly at €260.
The star was recently on a jaunt in Barcelona, and upon landing in Greece she tellingly said in one Instagram post: "Bikinis are like fries – you can't just have one."
A photo posted by Rosie Fortescue (@rosiefortescue) on
However, despite her love of social media, it seems Rosie reckons there are down-sides to her profile too.
"I love being on Made In Chelsea, but with it comes a level of abuse,' she recently admitted to Mail Online. "I have people on Twitter telling me 'You look like a 'f***ing ghost' because I won't wear fake tan and do the WAG look, but that's not me."
She added: "I am my own person and I won't look a certain way just to please others. I even do my own hair and make-up to keep it real!
"I don't want to be what the public want me to be. They can hate me – but I won't change.
"It's easy to get lost in the criticism and change to please them, but I won't."
